Urban Byzantine monks gave in to temptation

WHO ate all the pies? In 6th-century Jerusalem, the Byzantine monks were greedy gobblers - despite strict rules that they should eat mainly bread and water.

Most early Byzantine monasteries were located in remote deserts, but St Stephen's monastery thrived in Jerusalem. Wondering how urban living affected the monks, Lesley Gregoricka at the University of South Alabama in Mobile took bone samples from 55 skeletons buried under the monastery.

The ratios of various isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in the bones confirmed that the monks ate a lot of common cereals like wheat, as well as fruit and vegetables. But many bones were rich in the heavy isotope nitrogen-15, suggesting the monks ate lots of animal protein. That could mean meat, or dairy products such as cheese (Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, doi.org/jzt).

"The rules on issues such as poverty, chastity and obedience were certainly known and could not be easily ignored," says Peter Hatlie of the University of Dallas's Rome Program in Frattocchie, Italy. "Only fallen, weak, mad and demonic monks ate meat."

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